Ryan Shawcross has named Sir Alex Ferguson as the most difficult manager he ever faced during his time at Stoke City and also revealed that he once brandished a sword in his direction.
Tough centre-back Shawcross joined Manchester United's academy as a 15-year-old and progressed all the way to the first team before a successful loan spell at Stoke became a permanent switch in 2008. However, it was while he was still at Old Trafford following an FA Youth Cup defeat to the Potteries that Ferguson pulled out the weapon to emphasise how disappointed he was with the loss.
Shawcross was naming his 'nightmare XI opposition' for the Stoke Sentinel which contained United legends Edwin van der Sar, Nemanja Vidic, Paul Scholes and Cristiano Ronaldo. The now-retired defender has no hesitation in naming Ferguson in the dug-out.
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"Easy decision. We went up against some good teams and Wenger would always moan about us, even Pep would have a gripe," Shawcross wrote. "But Sir Alex would look at us for what we were and just say: 'We'll beat you.'
"They came with the mindset that if we or anyone thought Stoke was tough, they would match that and beat us at football. We found those games so hard. He was so tactically aware too.
"When you've got a manager making excuses before you've set foot in the stadium you're on the back foot. Society today always has a ready excuse and in football you hear about Financial Fair Play or Covid or the pitch. Well, we're in a very fortunate position to be paid for basically a hobby. If you lose on the day, it's usually because you weren't good enough.
"I came through probably the best youth team ever with Rossi and Pique and Jonny Evans, every one of us went on to have a really good career. And we lost a Youth Cup game at Stoke in what I thought was a travesty of a game that we should have won handsomely.
"We got called into his office the next day. He said, "If this happens again, you get this..." and he pulled out a sword. It's fair to say that stuck with me! It showed how important he knew that game was for us and the club. No excuses. It doesn't matter if you think you deserve to win, losing is not acceptable and we needed to improve.
"His whole office was like a museum. He had that famous New York photo 'Lunch atop a Skyscraper' that he'd talk about and there were trophies and pictures and a complete aura, like a headmaster's office... and there was me as a teenager knocking on the door when I was asking to go to Stoke on loan. The greatest manager ever."
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